Priceless

I actually enjoy the day after Thanksgiving shopping extravaganza. My mother and I have for years enjoyed climbing out of bed at 4:00 a.m. and waiting in the freezing cold to purchase items at a greatly discounted price. We would shop for hours before coming back to my house for lunch and a nap, but then Emily came.

Determined not to change our plans, we poured over the advertisements that arrived in the newspaper on Thanksgiving. The next morning, I carefully dressed the 14 month old angel and placed her in her car seat without so much as a peep. I remember thinking on the way to the first stop on our list, this is a breeze. But I could not have been more wrong, Emily awoke in the check out line of the first store with a fury.
She cried in the first store and every store we were in that day. She was inconsolable. I was quickly realizing my day after Thanksgiving tradition was over. When I was reaching my wits end and was ready to scream in the Toys R’Us checkout line, my mother picked Emily up out of her car seat and placed her on the conveyor belt. Emily suddenly stopped crying and found it humorous each time the belt stopped and started. The cashier, who had not lost her sense of humor in all the chaos, got into the act. She picked up my daughter and pretended to scan her, and much to our amazement, there was a beep. She had scanned for $9.99 as a tag was stuck to her behind. An elderly man behind me whispered in my ear, “No,dear, they are priceless.”